Many application programs, especially those involving communications-related functions, provide an address book or contacts feature. This feature allows users to input contact information for individuals, including name, title, company, physical address, as well as logical addresses, i.e. source determinations such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses etc., and save the information as a contact record.
Some contact applications allow the user to store an image associated with the contact. This allows the user to store, for example, a photograph of an individual in the contact record that contains information pertaining to that individual. The image may be stored in a field within the contact record and/or stored as an attachment to the contact record. The image and the contact record may further be stored in separate locations, and the image is then coupled to the contact record by storing in the contact record a pointer such as a link or a memory address, that points to the image. This type of coupling between an image and a contact record is commonly referred to as association.
The association of an image with a contact record can be useful for many applications, especially those relating to communications. For example, in a voice call application, upon receiving an incoming call from a phone number a user contact record that comprises that phone number may be displayed as part of a “call ID” function, including the associated image of the user. This allows the recipient of the call to quickly visually identify the identity of the caller.
Communications activities and applications are particularly relevant to mobile devices. Accordingly, the association of image data and contact records may be of particular use in the context of mobile devices. However, mobile devices differ from desktop computers and the like in that they have limited storage and processing capacity and a heightened concern with conserving battery power and minimizing bandwidth usage in wireless communications. Detailed images present a challenge to mobile devices in that regard.
Some contact applications also include a “save unknown number” feature. Whenever a call from an unknown telephone number is terminated, the user is asked whether he or she wishes to save this number as part of a new contact. During this process, the user may add the callers name and other information to the new contact record, including a photo. However, if the caller is unknown, the user usually does not have access to a suitable photo of the caller.
Moreover, for a person who regularly receives calls from callers not previously on record, searching for appropriate images for every new contact record would assume an unwarrantable amount of time and effort. At the same time the more new contact records on file, the more important it is to be able to distinguish between them, and be able to recall certain basic data about the callers associated with the contact records.
Accordingly, it would be advantageous to provide for a method and apparatus for automatic image selection and association with a caller contact record based on characteristics of the caller in the context of a mobile device.